Harold J. Cromer (June 21, 1922 in New York City – June 8, 2013) was a vaudevillian, Master of Ceremony, Hoofer, Choreographer, and Comedian. He was known as Stumpy in the dance/comedy/acting duo Stump and Stumpy.^[1]

Biography

Born in the early 1920s in Manhattan, Harold grew up in Hell's Kitchen, New York. His father, William Cromer (a longshoreman worker) and mother, Hattie Bell DeWalt, were born in Newberry, South Carolina.^[1]

Cromer was a self-taught dancer who was known early on for tapping on roller skates. It's noted Harold was inspired after seeing a movie of Bill Bo Jangles Robinson tapping down a flight of stairs. As a teenager, Harold earned a role on Broadway in the 1939 Cole Porter musical, “Du Barry Was a Lady,” starring Ethel Merman, Bert Lahr, and Betty Grable. Following a long road tour, Cromer returned to Broadway's Broadhurst Theatre to perform in Richard Kollmar's musical Early to Bed(1943), with music by Fats Waller.^[2]

Harold sang and danced in the 1938 film “Swing!,” directed by Oscar Micheaux, one of the first of its kind for having an all Black cast. Cromer appeared in other films over the years, including “The Cotton Club” in 1984 and Paper Soldiers, starring a young Kevin Hart, and produced by Jay Z.

Harold Cromer, was widely known as Stumpy, half of the vaudevillian duo Stump and Stumpy, performing antic dance routines in clubs around the country after World War II and later on major America television networks. From the 1930s into the 1950s, Stump and Stumpy were among the top comedy teams to play the black theater and nightclub circuit — including the Apollo Theater in Harlem. Stumpy and Stumpy were the headliners along with the 5 Platters and the Host of the night, Joe Lewis, for the opening night of the Moulin Rouge, the first interracial hotel in Las Vegas. They also appeared at the Paramount Theater and the Copacabana.

Stump and Stumpy sang and danced, and clowned while performing skits with great precision, often to the music of jazz orchestras, frequently performing on the same bill with the likes of Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, Count Basie, Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan.

With the emergence of television in the 1950s, the pair appeared on the Milton Berle Show and Steve Allen variety shows and occasionally in dramatic series, including “Dragnet” and “Gunsmoke.”

Stump and Stumpy are responsible for Dizzy Gillespie's famous bent horn. In his autobiography, To Be or Not to Bop, Gillespie quotes "...it was my wife’s birthday so we had a party and invited all the guys... When I got back to the club after making this interview, Stump ‘n Stumpy has been fooling around on the bandstand, and one had pushed the other, and he’s fallen back onto my horn. Instead of the horn just falling, the bell bent."^[3]

It is widely noted that the Stump and Stumpy act was stolen without credit by other artists of the time.^[4] In the PBS documentary Secret Daughter, Jerry Lewis admits "The black community, they loved the clown. They knew of what I took from their culture, which was their comedic sense of timing, their ability for self deprecating humor, which is everything I used... " about Lewis and Dean Martin's routine. ^[5]

In 1978, Harold returned to Broadway in the play “The American Dance Machine,” touring many cities in the U.S., Japan, and Europe. The play, named for the touring dance company, specialized in reviving dance numbers from musicals of the past. Cromer was the Oleo, or Intermission performer.^[6]

Cromer led as the Master of Ceremony for touring rock ’n’ roll shows, including Biggest Show of Stars, produced by Irvin Feld. For years, Cromer introduced performers like Paul Anka, Bobby Darin, Bill Haley and His Comets, Aretha Franklin, Nat King, Cole, James Brown and even a young Stevie Wonder.

Cromer died June 8, 2013, in Manhattan.^[1]

Filmography

• Ship Ahoy (1942) (uncredited)
• Boarding House Blues (1948)
• Mister Rock and Roll (1957)
• The Cotton Club (1984)
• Paper Soldiers (2002)

References